


This is the Way the World Ends

by TheBard



Series: What Dreams May Come [2]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Cole reads minds and that's pretty helpful, F/M, Fen'Harel - Freeform, Gen, Slow Burn, no time for your shit Solas, or 13 Ways of Looking at the Inquisitor, with apologies to Wallace Stevens
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-14
Updated: 2016-06-07
Packaged: 2018-04-14 16:33:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4571673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBard/pseuds/TheBard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Not with a bang, but a whimper." - T.S. Eliot "The Hollow Men"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. We Are the Hollow Men

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! Welcome to the second installment of Illyria and Solas' story. This section in inspired by lines from T.S. Eliot's poem "The Hollow Men." Enjoy.

**We are the stuffed men**

The Inquisition seems to explode out of nothing. The Chantry sees at first only a minor, transient annoyance; Orlais sees a novelty, nothing more; Ferelden sees even less, a bizarre offshoot from greater concerns - rebellion, war, a hole in the world. And then she rises, this strange elf girl touched by a god, and suddenly the world is as clay in her hands to be molded. Thedas watches on in wonder and terror, and waits for a girl they reviled to save or destroy them. This is the Inquisitor. 

**Leaning together**

This is not the first time he's been here, but this is certainly the worst. Once again, he finds himself at his desk, box propped open before him, lyrium shining and singing blue. Today, the pain is bad; last night the dreams drew terror close around his heart; and now the song is particularly sweet. So lost is he in the loathing of it, the aching of it, he does not hear her enter, does not notice her there at all until slender, gentle fingers flip the box closed, reach to his forehead cooled by magic, and wipe the sweat from his brow. Cullen mumbles protests as she drags him upstairs, resists weakly while she pulls off his heavy cloak, but ultimately submits when she pushes him into bed, body trembling and exhausted. He opens his mouth to insist that he does not want to sleep, does not want to dream, but before he can muster the words, she starts to sing. Low, soft, in a language he does not understand, until finally he drifts away. He dreams only of green forests and grey eyes and sleeps deep for the first time in a long while. This is his Inquisitor and Maker, she is mighty. 

**Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!**

It is all she can do most days to keep from groaning aloud at the stack of letters on her desk. Countless nobles clamoring for the Inquisitor's attention, never once guessing that every piece of paper that entered Skyhold was first vetted by her (and by Leliana even before that), and she often wonders if even the Inquisitor knows how much paperwork Josephine keeps off her desk. And then one day she walks into her office to find her desk...empty. She panics at first - so much sensitive information locked in those drawers - before she notices a package on her chair. Inside are a daintily wrapped box of Orlesian chocolates and a bottle of Antivan brandy. Try as she might, no one can locate the Inquisitor for her (Leliana says something vague like, "Oh, I think she's off on a mission" as though she doesn't know, which Josephine knows is nonsense because Leliana _always_ knows), and the woman effectively in charge of the free world is conspicuously absent from Skyhold all day. The next morning, Josephine finds a stack of completed paperwork on her desk and a bemused (and suspiciously innocent-looking) Illyria insisting she has no idea who could have done it all. She winks and then wanders off shortly afterward, leaving a flustered Josephine in her wake. This is her Inquisitor, and she is infuriatingly kind. 

**Our dried voices, when**

Leliana sees all things, hears all things, knows all things. She knows where all Inquisition members are at all times. She knows that Dorian and Iron Bull meet in the middle of the night for quiet conversation and less-quiet tumbles in the library. She knows what Vivienne schemes for as the Chantry scrambles for a Divine. She hears Ben-Hassarath whispers and knows what enchantress holds the ear of the Orlesian throne. She knows truths about Blackwall that she saves until they may be of use and secrets that keep Sera under control. There is little that escapes her notice - so when the Inquisitor returns from a trip to the Exalted Plains with a party member missing and an expression more akin to heartbreak than loss, she kicks herself for not noticing sooner. Solas is the one variable in the Inquisition about which she has been left unsure. And as she watches Illyria ascend the ramparts day after day, looking hopefully to the road, Leliana redoubles her efforts to track down his origins. This is, after all, her Inquisitor, and it is her duty to protect her. 

**We whisper together**

Iron Bull was a spy - he _gets_ people. He knows what they want and what they're going to do often far before they do. As a result, he finds it difficult to trust the judgment of others over his own; after all, he always has the most information at the end of the day. But when he watches a man he used to call friend stare him down and demand he sacrifice his men or declare himself traitor, he realizes...he did not see this coming. He realizes he should have - there was no way the Ben-Hassarath were going to let him go so easily - but he isn't prepared, not for this, not to make this decision. So he does the only thing he can think of. "Boss?" She doesn't even seem phased by having yet another responsibility added to the weight on her shoulders. She merely places a hand on his arm, looks at him with conviction the Qun would be proud of, and tells him to call the retreat. He does not question her, merely calls his boys home, and brands himself Tal-Vashoth. When the assassins come for him later, she spits on Qunari fanaticism and raises him from outcast to family. This is his Inquisitor, the only creature in Thedas he trusts more than himself. 

**Are quiet and meaningless**

He used to think Hawke was the only person in Thedas who could strike such a heroic figure in a story, who could provide heroism and villainy in equal measure, who could inspire the common folk with her trajectory to greatness. But Varric is forced to admit that even she has nothing on this little wisp of an elf that fell from the sky and wrapped the world around her finger. He's not sure what to believe - he's never had any stomach for magic or demons - but he can't deny she's special. So he resolves to tell her tale, all of it, so history will someday know and remember the woman who shook the world despite all the forces of gods and men arrayed against her. This is his Inquisitor, and Thedas will know her story. 

**As wind in dry grass**

She hands him the letter and he notices she's unusually quiet. She doesn't enter with her usual flair or barrage of obscenities in exchange for a book. When he opens the letter, he understands why. "Your father wants to see you," she says after a long silence. He doesn't want to see _him,_ Dorian thinks, not at all, but then she says _she'll_ go with him and he's already faced a dragon at her side, so he might as well go see his father. 

The meeting goes nothing like he expects and as the confession of his sexual tastes rolls off his tongue, he's suddenly absurdly afraid of what she'll say. But she just nods, as though she's always known (and of course, she probably has), despite all their outrageous flirting. And when they get back to Skyhold, she just wraps him in her arms, presses a kiss to his cheek, and murmurs, "I think you are very brave. It is so hard to love somebody." When she wanders back down to the rotunda, he's sure she's right, but this is his Inquisitor, and she is an easy one to love. 

**Or rats feet over broken glass**

The first thing Sera notices is the ears. Shite, an elf. The second thing she notices is the stupid face tattoo. Arse, one of those _elfy_ elves. The third thing she notices is the giggle that bubbles up in the elfy elf as she listens to Sera prattle on. That's not usually how it goes. The more time Sera spends with the Inquisitor, the more things she notices. Like how she likes to sneak into the kitchens at night to steal cookies or how she enjoys a strong drink after a good fight. And when Sera says _run, play, prank,_ the Inquisitor always, bafflingly, says _yes._ She's not very used to this acceptance thing; she is an arrow nocked on a string, primed, ready to fly at the first sign of trouble, but so far she hasn't seen the need. This is her Inquisitor, and for her, she'll stay put. 

**In our dry cellar**

She hands over the wyvern's heart without question or comment. She watches Bastien die anyway without a word. Vivienne appreciates both more than she will ever express. The girl never fails to surprise her. And though she regards her backwards Dalish upbringing with disdain and cannot help but disapprove of her increasingly obvious dalliance with the apostate elf, she finds a delightful conversationalist in the girl, an unfailingly loyal ally, and… shockingly… a friend. This is her Inquisitor, and though Vivienne will never admit it, she's not so bad. 

**Shape without form, shade without color**

She asks far too many questions about the Grey Wardens. To begin with, they are a secretive lot, and for another thing, he doesn't know shit about the Joining. But when she comes along with her holy cause, he answers, because finally _this_ might be enough to absolve him and Maker help him, but she's a magnificent woman to boot, so he's happy to sign on. As he watches a no-name elf reshape herself to be the most powerful woman in Thedas, he cannot help but wonder about grace and rebirth. The confession of his true name hangs on his lips every time he sees her, but then she smiles at him and the words die on his tongue. This is his Inquisitor, and the worst thing he can possibly imagine is disappointing her. 

**Paralyzed force, gestures without emotion**

She is not a sentimental woman, not really. For all she loves Varric's foolish romance novels, she does not romanticize her own role in the world, or the way that she will be remembered. She's a practical woman, all sharp edges and hard lines; there is no room for softness here. Except… sometimes the Inquisitor leaves poems rolled up in the scabbard of her sword (annoyingly), or she forces her to listen to the minstrel in the tavern play the lute while Illyria sings (badly), or she picks flowers and tells Cassandra that they match her eyes (they don't, usually). And though she often scoffs at the Inquisitor's antics (hardly befitting the Chosen of Andraste), at the end of the day she has a room of full of flowers, a heart full of poems, and the echo of a song on her lips as she readies for bed. This is her Inquisitor, and Cassandra imagines the world will remember her as a romantic heroine in more ways than one.

**Those who have crossed**  
**With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom**   
**Remember us-if at all-not as lost**   
**Violent souls, but only**   
**As the hollow men**  
**The stuffed men.**

She is bright, hard to look at sometimes, shining with the magic of Pride. Compassion remembers only the dark before her light and things are better now. He does what he can to help. Hide the knives, feed the spiders, make the cats dance. Remind them it's not their fault, never their fault, so hard to make them see, but he does. She lets him and it makes his heart glad. He wants to help her hurt. He knows she loves the Wolf, wants to guide her to the knowing of it, but sometimes the light scares him, so instead he listens.

_Burning searing pain...nothing here is real...why am I here… how did I get…_ running to divinity's outstretched hand… all is darkness before the Seeker sought her and demanded truth… just green now, hole in the world, scar in the sky… _why is everyone bowing…_ can't sleep for the memory of charred bodies and faces in worship, swept away by the fury of mountains… _stand up, please stand up… I'm not your fucking Chosen One…_

Sometimes the loudness of her is too much, so he focuses on _him._ His mind is soothing, a clear pool of water, thoughts like ripples from a smooth, perfect stone. He does this on purpose. But sometimes the wolf howls and Cole can hear him, loud and longing. When Wisdom gives way to Pride, he hears it for the first time. Ages of heartache, the pool is suddenly a river and it is angry, beating the stone smooth, bursting like the water that drowned Crestwood.

_Now I must endure...Ma banal las halamshir var vhen… rage of years beyond counting… she was my only friend and you butchered her… she fades like they faded, forever into the place I cannot see anymore... Emma ir abelas, ma vhenan, I'm so sorry.. I thought it would make things better...in tu setheneran din emma na… fool, says she, you are too hard on yourself… Ir tel'him… don't go, please don't go...I'm so afraid of failing_

She sends them away, but he can hear the screaming. Her mind is quiet in the aftermath. On the way back to Skyhold, her heartbeat thumps in a steady _what if he doesn't come back_ and every day before she gets to work there is a longing look over the walls and her heart beats _maybe today._ Cole busies himself with healing hurts until one day, as he stirs honey into Leliana's tea, the heartbeat bursts into exultant butterflies. The Dread Wolf has come home. 


	2. Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams

The day he comes back is, naturally, the day she stops looking for him. He's felt her magic for days, calling, singing, but now… nothing. He wonders if it's too late to come home.

But then there she is, walking towards the stables, when he enters the gates. At first she does not notice him and he's absurdly afraid of what she'll do when she does. He remembers her eyes, unfathomable, unyielding, watching him as he consumed the Free Marcher mages where they stood in fire and fury. He hadn't been able to turn around, couldn't look her in the eyes to see what she saw of him when it was over. He fled, like he has always fled. He's afraid what he'll see when she looks at him now.

"Solas!" His name splits the quiet courtyard and suddenly she's there, face broken into the most exuberant joy he's ever seen. "You came _back,"_ she says breathlessly, and for a moment, Solas frowns, troubled by the thought that somehow she doubted he would. He realizes, a beat later, that he probably deserves that.

"You were a true friend," he murmurs, the weight of the understatement heavy in him. "I could hardly abandon you now." The words taste like ash in his mouth. Someday soon, he thinks bitterly, but not now. He's suddenly aware of the space between them. She stands a few feet away, as though afraid to approach, but the distance seems particularly great all at once. Her eyes are sad.

"How are you, Solas?" she asks gently. "Are you alright?"

It is the one question he least knows how to answer. No. Of course not. Nothing has been "alright" since he woke up in this godsforsaken world he'd helped create and, judging from the way things have been going, nothing will be alright ever again. The one friend he'd always gone to for solace and advice had been ripped from him and now his only comfort was the most powerful mortal in Thedas that he had damned as certainly as he had the entire world. How could he ever be "alright?"

"I will be." Not much slower to the truth, but it is the one lie that sustains him, the one that he will cling to until he cannot anymore. He knows she understands.

"The next time you have to mourn, you don't have to do it alone." He wishes that were true, wishes that the dull pain beating against the world could be dispersed, distributed among the hearts of mankind and therefore make it less, make it manageable, make it weak. But it can't. He knows it can't.

"Everyone mourns alone," he murmurs. "But I appreciate the sentiment." Silence falls awkwardly between them, heavy with the weight of words unsaid. He wants to flee back to his room, to his books, to his paintings, but she has not yet dismissed him and, truth be told, what he wants most in the world is to be alone with her.

"You can trust me, you know." Her voice holds no accusation, no judgment, but the words wrap painfully in his heart. She looks like she knows everything he's thinking. It's the most unsettling thing about her. The urge to reach out to her, to pull her close, to bury his face in her hair and properly _weep_ for the first time since he'd woken is so strong, it takes a thousand years of self-control to keep still. All at once he's acutely aware of curious Inquisition eyes upon them and the safe, secluded walls of the rotunda are further away than he'd like. So he steps away, watches her eyes grow dark, and the distance they know so well swells between them.

" _Ir abelas_ , Inquisitor." Something he does not understand flickers behind her eyes at the use of her title, but she says nothing. "I'll work on it."

 _"Dir'vhen'an?"_ She shakes her head; her smile is resigned and her eyes are tired. She steps towards him and places a hand on his chest, fingers playing with the wolf bone at his neck. "I know you have considerations, Solas. Nothing has changed. Just...come find me if you need anything, alright?" He does not trust his voice to speak, so he nods. It seems to satisfy her. " _Sal sura,_ Solas," she murmurs, stepping away from him. "I will leave you to your thoughts."

Solas watches as she walks away and does not move for some times. Off to his right, Solas can see the Grey Warden watching him, mouth a firm line, eyes inscrutable. He simply shakes his head once before retreating back into the stables. He's not sure what the man is thinking, but he senses a profound disappointment. _Worry not, Ser_ , Solas thinks bitterly. _No one is more disappointed than I._

\---

He tries to keep his distance after that. He realizes he has shown her too much of himself, too much of the ancient sadness and pain. He thinks about that day in the Exalted Plains often - the rage, the anguish, the way she just watched while he snuffed out the mages' lives like a flame. He had forgotten that he was no longer divine and had passed godly judgement without thought or remorse. He had expected her to hate him for it, but perhaps they have more in common than he'd thought.

Regardless, she is too close. Too much. Too much like him, too much like the way he remembers the world… If he keeps it up, she'll know him and then… well, who knows what then.

So he - Fen'Harel, the Dread Wolf, the villain of a thousand Dalish bedtime stories - hides from the dread Inquisitor. When she comes to the rotunda, he is in the garden. When she's in the garden, he retreats to the library. He knows this is childish, but it is the only thing he knows how to do. He knows he cannot do it for long.

When finally she finds him, he's bent over a book that may hold a clue to the true nature of the shards she's been picking up in the wilderness, but his ancient Tevene is rusty, and Void take him, but he's tired.

"Solas?" Her voice is as tired as he feels and he glances up at her in spite of himself. She hasn't been in the field - that weight hangs on her differently - but he can tell she's been hard at work in other ways, perhaps going through paperwork with Josephine or strategizing with Cullen. "I've been looking for you." He forces his eyes back onto the text in front of him.

"Inquisitor," he greets brusquely. "I have been busy." She nods and takes her normal seat by her desk.

"I see that." She peers at his stack of books closely. "You can read ancient Tevene?" He sighs inwardly.

"Yes."

"You never fail to surprise," she says, seemingly oblivious to his tone. "Leliana is trying to teach me Orlesian, but I'm afraid I don't have the tongue _pour la langue d'amour_." The way the syllables roll off her tongue, he sincerely doubts that. Not that the _shem_ language could possibly compare with the way even her fragments of elvhen sound, so much like home, so much like… Stop it.

"I am sure you will learn," he says stiffly. She shrugs and gets to her feet, stretching languidly before coming around the table to stand next to him. He can feel the heat of her body as she leans against him, cheek pressed casually against his shoulder as she peeks at the tome open on the desk.

"Perhaps if I had a teacher as knowledgeable as you," she teases, pressing even closer to him. The warmth of her is stifling, he can still smell the lingering scent of her morning bath, she is so soft…

"Please, Inquisitor," he barks, jerking away from her. "I'm _working."_ She blinks once, startled, and steps away. Shame rises in him as her cheeks flush with embarrassment, but he forces himself to remain aloof.

"Right," she mumbles, backing away from him. "My apologies. I'll leave you to it." And she does.

And so it goes for many days after. He engrosses himself in study of things that may not even matter in the long run. And when she comes looking for him, he protests he is too occupied with research. And when the day is long and she comes in to talk, he directs her to Dorian instead. The first time her eyes are bewildered and hurt. The second time, her face closes off to him completely and a light goes out in his world. She does not come back.

She goes out on a mission without him. She walks into the rotunda past him without a word, marches up the stairs, and he hears her explain to Dorian that she needs him in the Emerald Graves. His heart aches at the idea of her going to a place so entrenched in their history without him, but he says nothing when she walks back downstairs. There's a book in her hands which she sets down at his desk before she turns to leave.

 _"Dar'eth shiral,"_ he calls after her too late as she walks out. He turns his attention to the book she left on his desk - some sand stained diary entry about the shards, it seems. It's better this way.

She's gone for a long time.

The days turn into a week; the week into a fortnight, the fortnight stretching closer to a month. Her absence can be felt in every corner of Skyhold. He wonders if it's always like this when she's gone, or if he is projecting his own disquiet. As the days go by, a heaviness forms in him, an anxiety his cannot shake. This Is the first time she's been gone for so long without him, the first time…

He finds himself longing for Cole, a familiar spirit with whom he may be himself. But she took Compassion with her, like she always does, so he is alone.

Then the ravens come in. He doesn't know what they say, but Leliana rushes down the stairs, poorly concealed fear etched across her face. The Commander, Ambassador, and Spymaster are not seen for many hours. This frightens him most of all.

And then her party returns. He hears Inquisition soldiers shouting out to open the gates and he hears the cry for the healers above all else.

His feet carry him out of the rotunda before his mind has time to protest. Not her, couldn't be her, she walks through fire every day, how could it be…

But it is. Against all real possibility, it's her. The three humans who run the Inquisition while she is away are huddled outside a tent by the healer.

"Cole?" he speaks the spirit's name into the air like a prayer and the spirit appears, just as he'd hoped.

"The earth shook with the footsteps of giants." Cole's voice is uncharacteristically agitated. "Sun hot, air choked with green, the fists came down and she was there." His eyes are unfocused, far away. "Will exhausted... not enough to save myself... if he was here...pull yourself together...ribs shattering beneath my skin, lungs working too hard to kill me…" All at once, Cole comes back to himself. "The pain is very bad."

He rushes into the tent where Dorian and Mother Giselle are hunched over the Inquisitor. She looks very small. Pale. Covered in a thin sheen of sweat. An ugly makeshift bandage is wrapped around her abdomen. He forces himself to watch as Dorian peels it away. But the worst thing is the sound of her breathing, ragged and bloody.

"Fucking giants," Dorian mutters, barely glancing up at him. "If you wouldn't mind lending a hand?"

He is at the Tevinter's side before he's even finished speaking, calling all the powers of the Fade to him, summoning every healing spell he knows. Not now, not so soon, not like this… He thought he'd have more time to…

At first he thinks she's unconscious, but really her eyes are screwed shut and her jaw is clenched to keep from screaming.

" _Vyn esaya gera assan i’mar’av’ingala,_ " he mutters. Her eyes flicker open at the sound of his voice, but she does not say anything. Solas forces a smile as her eyes meet his. "You could not pick a fight with someone your own size?" She smiles weakly at that.

"You may...have noticed…" Each word is accompanied by a wet, painful breath. "I...am very...small." She coughs sharply, a sound painful enough to make him wince. Blood and spittle drip down her lips - not good, Solas thinks urgently, very not good.

 _"Ir abelas, hahren,"_ she wheezes. "I hate to...pull you...from your...work." She's being petty, they both know, but her words cut him to the core. What if he had been there? What if he hadn't distanced himself, made her feel like she couldn't ask him to come? He could have cast a barrier, warned her, could have… Another cough rips from her.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, more genuinely this time. "I didn't' mean to…"

"Hush, _da'len,"_ he murmurs, pushing blood and sweat soaked hair from her eyes. "My work can wait." She barks a laugh that brings more blood to her lips and shakes her head.

"Damned giants," she mutters, clutching at her stomach. _"Nuva uralas telsyl na i'ga syl nyel laimem."_ Solas can't help but smile at her expletives, but every breath she draws sounds more like drowning.

"Be still, Illyria," he says more firmly this time. "You're only going to vex your wounds further." She quiets at his touch and before she can do anything else to kill herself faster, he presses a spell to her forehead. "Forgive me, _da'len,_ but I cannot wait for your permission." And with that, he sends the Inquisitor to sleep.

\---

She burns with fever for days. He's reminded very sharply of his first meeting with her after she'd fallen from the Breach. It had been his fault then as well.

She talks in her sleep, sometimes too softly for him to understand and sometimes in fragmented elvhen that he finds hard to follow, but one night she says his name.

 _"Solas."_ He starts at the sound, looks up from his books expecting to see her awake, but still she sleeps. "Solas," she breathes again. " _Ir abelas. Ar avy isalem na_." His heart constricts suddenly, painfully; the corners of her eyes are streaked with tears.

"Shh," he hushes. "I'm here, _ma vhenan_." The endearment slips out before he's even aware he's thought it. _Ma vhenan._ My heart. Void, take him.

"Illyria…" He gathers one of her hands into his, bringing it to his lips. He leaves gentle kisses trailing along her fingers. "What have you done to me, you wretched thing?" He shakes his head. _Ma vhenan_. The death of him, she would be, most certainly. Though it's far more likely she'll die first… the thought is enough to send him spiraling, careening into a darker place, somewhere he dared not go.

 _"Ma vhenan,"_ he whispers, lips still pressed against her fingers. "Wake up."

\---

She awakes alone. She remembers a giant's fury, crushing pain, and the rest are fragments of a dream - a high moon, full and bright, a wolf howling, following, such sadness in the sound… a whispered voice she can no longer hear, a longing.

The moment she stirs, Cole materializes beside her and the room fills up with as many as the Inquisition can fit in her chambers. Dorian is the first one by her side, checking her bandages and shooing others away as best he can.

"You certainly know how to cause a scare, my dear," he says briskly. "Had the whole world in an uproar, I expect." Illyria smiles apologetically.

"Terribly inconvenient, I know," she murmurs, wincing as she sits up. "A mountain of paperwork is waiting for me, I imagine." Dorian nods, a half-smile playing on his lips, belying obvious worry and exhaustion.

"Just scads of it, my darling. You won't sleep for a week." He pauses. "Which is just as well, considering that's how long you've slept."

"A week!" Illyria exclaims, horrified.

"A week," the Tevinter mage confirms. "I hope you're well rested, because no one else is. I'm amazed our resident apostate elf is still standing after so long without his precious shut-eye." She blinks, still disoriented at the thought of so much time lost.

"What?"

"Solas," Dorian clarifies with a shrug. "Hardly let anyone in to see you this whole time. Poor man ran himself ragged."

\---

Every step is an agony, but eventually she finds herself in the rotunda. His back is to her, like it always is, but she can see the weariness etched into every inch of his form in the way he holds himself, bent over his books like the weight of the whole world held him there.

"Solas?" She does not miss the way his breath hitches or the speed at which he spins around.

"Illyria!" He catches himself. "Inquisitor." He quickly schools his face into a blank mask.

"Hello, Solas." She offers a smile. How odd that they always come back to this - standing in his room, the few feet between them an insurmountable expanse, wordlessly playing a game that neither know how to lose. Who will speak? Who will break? Who will be the first to admit how tired they are? She watches him sway on his feet, utterly exhausted. She feels blood trickling down her back from barely healed wounds that she can't even remember sustaining.

"Are you well?" The room seems to be spinning and for a moment she's not sure who asked the question. In the end it doesn't matter; neither of them answer.

"You should be resting." Solas' voice is a low hum of disapproval. It sounds familiar, comforting in a way.

"I could say the same of you." She forces a smile and steps slowly, carefully to the couch at the side of the room. She eases herself into it with a stifled whimper. At the sound of it, Solas is across the room and at her side, as though he'd stepped through the Fade to reach her. His arms are strong around her as he helps her sit down.

"Do you ever get tired of putting me back together?" she asks, half-joking, as she relaxes into the couch, head against the wall, eyes closed, waiting for the pain to pass. He settles down beside her.

"Never." Her heart skips a beat at the immediate certainty with which he answers, but she does not comment. She's learned that for all he loves her questions, sometimes silence is the best course with Solas, as if the absence of her words gives him room for his.

In the end, though, neither of them speak again. And when the Inquisition comes looking for her and they find their Inquisitor and her apostate asleep together in the rotunda, everyone agrees to take the day off and go back to work tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I've been MIA on this one, guys. My middle school students take up almost all of my energy always, but I've finally scraped something together for you. Please offer comments - they help me figure out where to go next.
> 
> Relevant Elvish: (all courtesy of the lovely Project Elvhen)   
> Ir abelas - I'm sorry   
> Dir'vhen'an - Promise?   
> Sal sura - See you later   
> Da'reth shiral - Go safely.   
> Vyn esaya gera assan i'mar'av'ingala - You'd try to catch an arrow with your teeth.   
> Nuva uralas telsyl na i'ga syl nyel laimem - May nature strangle you with all the air you've wasted
> 
> Orlesian (which I'm just gonna go ahead and assume is legit French)   
> "pour la langue d'amour" - for the language of love


	3. In Death's Dream Kingdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone - so sorry for the ridiculous delay. Once school is out I'll have more time before I start teaching summer school, but for now here is what I've got. Thank you for sticking with me!

The Inquisition is quiet in the wake of the Inquisitor's recovery. Leliana and Josephine limit the gossip surrounding her injuries. Somewhere Corypheus is gutting elven ruins and his men are dying, choked with red. But in Skyhold, things are quiet.

Illyria heals slowly. Even with magic, the damage was severe and every day is a slow battle with the demands of mortal flesh. Somewhere, elven servants are dying in the shadows of the Winter Palace. But in Skyhold, things are quiet.

Illyria spends much of her time in her quarters. Can't have too many in the Inquisition knowing that she's mortal, she suspects is the wish of her Inner Circle, when they suggest she remain out of sight. Instead, she reads letters and answers them quickly. Somewhere, her clan is besieged by bandits and her former Keeper is working up the courage to appeal to the mighty Inquisitor. But in Skyhold, things are quiet.

When she can no longer force herself to do paperwork she sits in the balcony of her room and watches the people below. Sometimes Cole joins her and allows her to poke in the heads of her people. Somewhere, Elissa still has nightmares of being trapped beneath burning wood in Haven, of a dragon soaring overhead. Somewhere, Segrit regards the new merchants with envy and the young soldiers with regret, because when he lifts a sword, an old wound wakes and he's not sure what use he has anymore. Somewhere, Elan is singing in the garden when she thinks no one can see her, not because she was trained to, but because the half-remembered magic of her ancestors told her that the garden _loves_ music, and _that_ is half the reason her garden grows here, at the top of the world. Cole explains all of this to her in low, lilting tones, with words more like poetry than speech. He does not understand yet why Illyria cries when she listens to him, only that there are hurts even he cannot heal. But it is no matter, for in Skyhold, things are quiet.

 Illyria does not visit Solas in the days since she first recovered. As she grows stronger, she finds herself in the courtyard watching Cassandra and the Iron Bull spar, carving delicate wooden figurines in the stables with Blackwall, or sitting idly at Varric's feet, lulled into dozing by the scratching of his pen. Somewhere, very near, the Dread Wolf is waiting to ask her a question, to make a decision, to offer a confession to one even holier than he. But Illyria does not seek him out for many days, because in Skyhold, things are quiet.

  **\---**

 "What were you like?" The question is blurted before he even has time to consider it. "Before the Anchor?" He pauses. It had been many days since  they had last spoken, that night in the rotunda, but she came to him today and he'd requested to speak somewhere more private. He'd been surprised when she led him to her quarters, and he is now scrambling, trying to understand of himself what he has come to ask of her. For her part, she simply waits patiently for him to elaborate.

 "Has it changed you?" he presses. "Your mind? Your morals? Your...spirit?" He falters on the last word, the memory of Wisdom still raw. Her eyes are wide, grey as the overcast sky above Skyhold, and fathomless. He remembers when he could pluck thoughts out of mortal minds like fruit from a tree. How he longs for that power now. The years of her life that stretch before the time of the Conclave are shrouded in mystery, and  he finds he feels cheated by his ignorance of them. He wants to explore her memories, see the development of this woman who has defied everything he feels he should know about this world. Why this veritable child of eternity, who has lived her whole life on tales of his treachery, only to end up a creature of extraordinary understanding, sensitivity, and grace?

 "Would I know if I'd changed?" she points out gently, drawing his attention back to his initial question. "I have always been as I am, for better or for worse." He nods absently, considering her answer.

 "A fair point," he concedes. "But you are unlike anyone I have ever met. You display a wisdom and subtlety in your actions that I have not seen since…" _Since the very air you breathed was thick with magic, since the singing of the People held the world together, since the power of my brethren had not yet given way to godly folly, since_...but those words die on his lips and he does what he does best...lie. "Since my deepest wanderings into the ancient memories of the Fade." He thinks about Wisdom and realizes that is more truthful that he'd imagined.  "You are not what I expected."

 She smiles at that, playful and bemused. "What did you expect?" It's a more difficult question then she realizes.

 "Most people…" How to explain? He sighs, struggling for words in a way he's never had to, before her. "Most people are the same. They behave in predictable patterns, lives rising and cresting and falling, all in pursuit of idle fancies. Wealth or comfort or power. Or maybe the lives are still, dormant, shut down in fear and ignorance. Such has been my experience with your people. But…" He shakes his head. "If the Dalish have produced one such as you, have I misjudged them?"

 Finally something flickers in her eyes and it's not what he'd hoped. It's a sadness he does not understand, a grief he does not know how to mitigate.

 "Before the Anchor…" She pauses, looks down at her hand where green fire shimmers dimly, and shakes her head. "Before the Anchor, my mother used to sing to me in Elvhen she did not understand, and when I asked her to translate, to teach me, she wept because she only knew pieces, for all else had been taken from her, and she was ashamed." She turns away from him, hands gripping the balcony as though to keep herself upright.

 "Before the Anchor, my father used to lay offerings at the feet of gods he neither knew nor understood, but felt for all time a nameless fear, and nothing would ever relieve him of it.

 "Before the Anchor, I discovered that my will could dig into the recesses of the Fade and when first I dreamed and opened my eyes, I saw the Black City and I did not know where to find the gods because there was no one left to tell me." Her voice rises tremulously in pitch and Solas can feel her aura churning, roiling around her, thick with an emotion he does not understand.

 "Before the Anchor, I befriended countless spirits in the Fade and did not understand when they became demons, and no one in the waking world could comfort me because they did not understand. And when I was sent to the Conclave, to spy, to die, my clan knew I might never come back and they sent me anyway, because before the Anchor, my magic was strange, my ideas absurd, and whatever voice I may have had was silenced by millennia of fragmented traditions that we cling to because _we have nothing else_." As she spits out her final words, the magic around her boils to a break point and then...it's gone. Evanesces to nothing as she exhales slowly and is left with naught but an empty weariness. Finally she turns back and meets his gaze, eyes stormy and sad.

 "Before the Anchor, I was Dalish. After the Anchor, I was Dalish. All I am is what I am and you dishonor yourself by pretending some strange ancient magic could make me _better_."

 Not for the first time, he is at a loss for words in her presence. Her cheeks are flushed, gray eyes sharp as cold steel, and for a moment, Illyria is all Inquisitor. Demanding, unyielding, unmerciful. All she is, he muses, is what she is, and all at once, he realizes that he was wrong. That life is not so simple. That he had forgotten much while he was sleeping - most importantly - that the world does not progress in a forward or backward of evolution and devolution, but as an inexorable adaptation and transformation. Nothing is better; it's just different. _She's_ just different. Maybe they all are. Did it change anything? Did it save what was lost? No. But maybe… just maybe, it was enough. Enough for now.

 " _Ir abelas_ ," he murmurs, lowering his eyes. It seems to startle her. "Again, you display wisdom that I do not possess. In some ways, you have seen so much more of life than I have." Her brow furrows at that, but he presses on. "You are right to rebuke me." He  pauses. "It was never your people's fault that the world is this way." Even he is surprised at the pain in his heart at his own words. She cocks her head to the side; he reads the unspoken question forming on her lips, and in that moment he aches for the telling  of it. _I'm sorry, Void take me, I'm so sorry…_ the crooning of his heart is so loud in his ears that he's sure she can hear it in the silence.

 "Come," she sighs abruptly.  She takes his hand without further explanation and draws him back into her quarters, to the fireplace. He does not protest when she sinks to the floor and pulls him down with her.

 "Do you remember Taigen's cabin?" she murmurs, birthing flames in the hearth with a wave of her hand. "In Haven? Do you remember what you said?" The night is a hazy drunken one in his memory, but he remembers the feeling of her head in his lap, elvhen words whispered like prayers.

 "There is nothing wrong with you," he repeats. She smiles, gentle and forgiving.

 "I know," she says, like she had said then. He thinks perhaps that is the most beautiful thing about her - she _knows_. She squeezes his hand, so soft he'd forgotten she was holding it. "But I know also that the Dalish have done you wrong, Solas. I know that you are tired, and sad, and those that should have given you comfort drove you away instead. For that, I am sorry. Perhaps it was not always thus, but we are far from home, all of us." It's a truer statement than she knows.

 "You must be gentle with us," she says, tracing circles on the back of his hand with her own. "You wander so far in dreams, sometimes I fear you forget where you are when you wake. This world is so fragile, you're liable to break it with all your pushing and prodding." Solas smirks, rather mirthlessly.

 "So says the woman who has pushed and prodded her way to being the most powerful mortal in Thedas." She snorts and he is glad to see her smile.

 "Hardly. Thrown in and thrust here is more accurate. But don't change the subject." Her eyes narrow at him then, thoughtful and inquiring. "It is  so curious how you say that."

 "Say what?"

 "Mortal." A pang of unease shoots through him. "A mortal sent through the Fade, the most powerful mortal in Thedas." She parrots his own words back at him musingly, but she's not looking at him now, she's looking at the fire, and he wonders what kind of lie he can get away with.

 "So what does all this mean, Solas?" she asks abruptly, eyes flashing back to him. "For the sake of all these sad little worlds and what remains of them, let us dispense with prevarication, with dancing and evading. What does any of this mean for the strange wayward apostate and the most powerful mortal in Thedas?"

 And finally they come to it. To the reason he brought her here, the reason he had not fully acknowledged. He opens his mouth and half expects to lie, to make some excuse to leave, but then his eyes truly meet hers and she is both illuminated and shadowed by the firelight and she has never looked so beautiful to him as she does now, and what he says is the last thing he means to.

 "It means…" A pause, a drowning man scrambling for shore. "I have not forgotten the kiss." Let him drown, then.

 "Good." Her eyes are bright, gleaming steel in the firelight, and she leans forward, expectant, insistent. All at once he is aware of what she wants, what he cannot give her, what he must not promise, and before he knows it, he is already retreating,  moving away.

 "Don't." A command, half lover, half Inquisitor.

 "It would be kinder in the long run." Civil disobedience _. It's not right, not now, not real, not even here_. But the thought of walking away now stirs the memory of her face, broken and bloodied beneath the fists of giants, struggling for breath, and he knows he cannot deny her this, cannot deny himself this, even for a little while. Even as he shakes his head, he says, "But losing you…"

 In the end, it is she who pulls him back to her; it is she who claims his lips, for she is the Inquisitor and she takes what is hers. And when he finally pulls away, she smiles, happy in her conquest. And when his heart feels like it will burst within him and he can no longer take it, he whispers " _Ar lath ma,_ " a promise already broken, and she answers in the only way she possibly could.

 "I know." 


End file.
